Happy Birthday to Me and You Never Know Who You'll Meet on the Metro

So Tuesday, something crazy happened. So we were in the metro going to
the church because we had our interviews with president that happen
every transfer. So we were waiting for a train but we missed the first
one cuz the metro was just that full that we couldn't get on. So while
we were waiting for the second train this guy came up to me and was
like "Anziano Yskes...." And then said a bunch of things in Dutch and
I was like "uhhhhh what?" He was like "you're from Hollanda right?" So
I explained that my ancestors were and told him that my family comes
from Zaandam. When I said the name of the city his whole family (wife
and like 5 kids) were like "WHAT!?!" and were stunned. The dad told me
that he has a friend in that city with the same last name but spelled
Ijskes cuz that's how you spell it there. So he took a picture of me
and sent it to his friend with my name and stuff. I then gave this guy
my name and basic info so if anything more crazy happens he can let me
know. But that, my friends, is a crazy story all because my missionary
tag has my last name on it. Woah.

What else. Rome is treating me pretty good. It's honestly so hot right
now it's like 38 degrees Celsius every day and we don't have A/C in
our house so it gets nice and toasty here, lemme tell ya what, but we
are alive still so that's pretty cool. One thing that's really new
about Rome is that we run into members all the time; mostly people
from Utah that yell "hey Elder!!!" and then have to talk to you.
Happens often. But it's cool to meet a bunch of new people and stuff.
Also my birthday was this week! That was cool! I got the birthday
package with all the stuff you sent and with Derricks gift, it was so
sick. I love him so much. Also I got the letter the YW sent me when
they all signed it. Haha that was interesting and now it's hanging on
my wall hahaha swag. Also I got a letter from Oma and papa Karl. That
was neat! They sent it a while ago but it was still cool to get. It's
nice being so close to the mail and stuff so I'll check at least once
a week for mail and stuff so I'll let you guys know what makes it to
me! But, yeah, so on my legit birthday we didn't really do anything
special. My companion sang me happy birthday but we had a bunch of
work to do so we didn't really do anything. BUT! The next day,
Saturday, the other Anziani in our district had a baptism that night
so we all went to Hard Rock Cafe to celebrate my birthday and their
baptism it was soooooo sick. I got a BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger. Oh my
gosh, it was ridiculous. It was my comps first time there and he got a
pulled pork BBQ sandwich and I was like bro. Welcome to America yo and
he was so pumped. Also I used my card to pay for everyone but they
gave my cash for their food so if you see that on my account. That's
why ha-ha it was an easy ATM withdrawal ha-ha. But yeah it was a good
week here in Rome and I'm doing really well! I love you and miss you
all and thank everyone for all of their birthday wishes and their
prayers! I appreciate every single one of them 😀😎

In response to your last email! Hope dad and Ian are doing well and
they have a good week. That's also super awesome that you and the
girls are being missionaries! It's really nice to hear that kinda stuff
coming from home. I love it. I'll pray for you and always remember
that the missionaries love teaching friends of members with the
members there. ;) Tell the twins they can use that ball as much as
they want to practice with so then they can become super good at water
polo. I'll help them more when I get home. I love you all so much
though! Have a good week

Anziano Yskes

Happy Birthday Celebration at the Hard Rock

 

 

 

It is WAY hot here

 

 

Zone Conference



 

 

Transfer to Rome 6

So the trip to Rome was long. Like 12 hours. But on the way we got Napoli pizza which is where pizza was invented so it's literally the best pizza in the world and I almost died eating it. So good.  Idk what my address is. I'm close to the mission home. My church building is literally the same as the mission office so that's neat. I'm like a 15 min bus ride to the temple. Idk when the temple will be done. My new companion speaks very good English and he makes me laugh all the time. I love him so much! I hope that answers your onslaught of questions. Haha! 

So this week was kinda crazy. Had to say all my goodbyes to the people back in Bagheria and stuff. Packed up and hopped on the train for the long ride up to Rome. We made it. My companion is Anziano Castillo and he is from the Philippines and he is super cool! We laugh wayyyyyy to much. It's like my abs workout ha-ha. The part of the city where our house is, is on the north part of the city and it’s so nice! There are a ton of parks and piazzas and stuff. A lot of green everywhere which is so crazy for a big city. Also the culture here is so different than Sicily but it’s way cool! I love it up here and it's so fun. My birthday is in a couple days so that's weird. Probably won’t do anything super special. Probably just will do the same thing I do every day. Swag. Idk I'm happy. It's going to be 98 tomorrow. 100 the next two days after and then 102 after that so I'll just die here this next week but we will see. The nice thing about Rome is, is that everywhere they just have these fountains of water that just runs everywhere and it's all clean and drinkable and I love it. It's usually pretty cold too so that sweet. Anyways that's pretty much it. I love you all!! 

Anziano Yskes

Zach and his New Companion

 

 

 

 

 

 

Napoli Pizza

 

Yes, I found Subway

 

 

Rome

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

The Heat is On!

It's so hot here and I have like no energy to do anything right now. So today I bought some pants. They are cool also I bought a backpack cuz I needed one and it's sick and only €15 so that made me happy. We went and saw a church. It was cool I'll send some pictures. Oh I got transfer calls. I'm going up to Rome 6. It is like the nicest and richest part of the city so that's pretty neat. I'm going to be with Anziano Castillo. He is from the Philippians. That will be fun. Oh for 4th of July all the missionaries in Palermo got together and we made burgers, ate watermelon, and sang the star spangled banner so that was fun.

I'm glad yall had a good time in Florida! Everyone in Italy loves Florida. Hahaha but I'm glad you all made it home safe too. Send me a pic of what Macee posted of me because I want to see that. I'm sorry I don't have a lot to say this week. I'll send you some pics though.

Anziano Yskes 

 

The Church we visited

 

 

 

4th of July Celebration

 



Lorenzo and his family

A church activity where we ate cultural food. My comp and I made sloppy Joe and they were all asking for the recipe

Chance meeting of Patrino's Pizzeria Owners Cousin

So thanks for all the emails! I really do appreciate it! Is Alec
okay? Like his back. Hope he didn't hurt it too bad for track. That
would not be good. Also Meghan is killing it with that face also she
is so cute!! Miss y'all so much. But at the run you saw Mercedes!? So
sick! She's my work mom. Hahaha I miss her cooking. 🍛🍛. I hope Brit
is doing good at Drawform though! It's a good place and the people
are good. But yeah so today (the day I wrote this) is Wednesday. Today
we went with Marco and Lorenzo to a bowling alley. Only €1.50 for a
game and shoes here. So good. but I scored 150 so I mean when I become
a professional bowler. It started here in Bagheria ha-ha. But that's
the daily update!

Okay, so today is Saturday and today was a crazy day. Well, not a crazy
day but something crazy happened. So, we were going to go out to eat
with a member family tonight. They called us and asked if we could go
down to the restaurant that we wanted to go to later that night to
make a reservation because the number they had was not working. So we
walked down there and when we got there we found out they were doing
reconstructive work on the inside of this restaurant. When we arrived
a man came out and greeted us and told us of the work that was going
on. He recognized our accents and asked where we were from. I said
Michigan and he said "me too" in English. Then I said Grand Rapids and
he replied "me too". I told him that actually I was from Holland and
he said he knew Holland. I then asked him how and he said his cousin
owns a pizza restaurant there..... It's called Patrinos....... I was
like uhhhhh the one on 8th street and he was like "YEAH!"..... NO
FREAKING WAY!!!! This dude’s cousin is the owner of the same pizzeria
that I've been to so many times before in my life and we meet, of all
places, a small town in Sicily literally on the other side of the
world. The most incredible thing I've ever seen. The Lord knows where
we need to be and the people we need to see because only we can touch
them like nobody else can. So next time you get pizza tell the owner I
met his cousin "Sal Mineo" in small town Bagheria. So crazy.

So today for pday we went and played basketball. I was balling so
hard. But that's pretty much it.

Okay so did this family that I'm apart of just gain like a ton of
money randomly? Everyone is freaking on vacation like.... What the
crap. Yall are in Florida. Ian's in Salt Lake. I'll just chill in
Italy hahahahaha. Swag. Anyways I hope you're having a good time in
Florida I'm sure it's about as hot there as it is here. Might be
hotter here but idk. Also I bet that Toyota is treating you real well
ha-ha shoulda got a Fiat like everyone else here in Italy. Anyways.
thanks for all the photos they are pretty cool to see during the week.
Also the iPads are great! We haven't really used them a ton for
proselyting but we will figure it out one day. Also luckily for us our
apartment has 3 A/C,s but the way the electricity works you can only
use 2 or else the power turns off. But you can't use either of them
when you use the oven and you can only use one when you use the
washer. So we got it figured out our house stays at a cool 16 C. So
good. Anyways love you all tons and hope you have a great week!!

Anziano Yskes

Bowling with Marco and Lorenzo

"The Face"

 

 

 

 

Dinner at the "Old Wild West" with the Saccones

 

Visit to the Branch in Mistretta

Yo,mom check this out!! We got iPads! So sick. So we had a conference
Tuesday and got our iPads finally. They are like super restricts
(obviously) but they are super cool and such a great tool to use for
proselyting, studying, and watching Bible videos and stuff like that.
It's so cool. So here is the deal right now. I can check emails during
the week but I can't respond back so if at any time during the week you
wanna just send a lil home update or sports update (dad) or anything.
Just let me know 😎. I'd love to see and hear about the home life.
Also I'm probably going to write longer emails because I'll update
them lil by lil as the week goes on. So Friday we went to this small
city in the mountains called Mistretta. There are missionaries there.
Idk how but there are. It was a way cool trip. While we were there the
work was hard but fun. The branch made us a HUGE lunch and man was it
good. We made a lil hike to this castle that overlooks the city and
we took a pic up there and then went down the mountain to a city
called Santo'stefano. It's like a lil beachside city and we did some
English course finding there but also took some sick sunset pictures
at the same time. It was a great time!

Okay so today is Monday. We just got done playing some zone soccer and
it was very fun. It was super-hot and now I can't feel my legs cuz I'm
so tired but it's all good. Everyone is now at our church and the
Internet is going wayyyyyy slow.... I don't like it. But I'll get this
email out anyways. I'm so pumped the girls are having a good time with
swimming and that they are still doing it. I can't wait to get back
from the mission and get in the water. It will feel so good. Also Aunt
Liz told me about your running story. You both had two very different
perspectives on how the run went... It made me laugh. 😎 But
everything is good here in Italy. Probably going to go get a gelato
after this so that will feel really good. I'll try to send you some
nice pictures from this week. I hope you like them! Love you all so
much!! Ciao ciao

Anziano Yskes